Body sensors, in particular sensors that detect electrical activity, galvanic potential, skin resistance, and the like, are becoming increasingly popular in wearable applications for providing biofeedback of the wearer. Examples of biofeedback that can be sensed using body sensors include, for example, heart rate, brain activity, temperature, muscular action, emotional state, and others. Many body sensors are characterized by a conductive plate or surface that interfaces (i.e., provides contact) with the skin of the wearer of the body sensor. The contact interface is commonly referred to as either “wet” or “dry.” This distinction is based primarily on whether there is a conductive medium, such as an electrically conductive gel, between the contact interface and the skin (i.e., wet), or not (i.e., dry). Additionally, dry contact interfaces may only require being in near proximity to the skin of the wearer, such as on the outside of clothing, rather than in direct contact with the wearer's skin.
In current applications, the body sensors are typically implanted into the skin of a body, directly attached to the skin of the body, or are in proximity to the skin of the body in a wearable sensor device, such as a wrist worn device. Typical attached body sensors and/or wearable sensor devices may be linked to a main controller device by wires or other hardware interconnects. The main controller device may itself be a wearable device. However, under certain conditions, it may be inconvenient or even infeasible to run wires from each body sensor of the wearer to the main controller device.
To address such conditions, some wearable sensor devices are linked to the main controller device by some form of wireless communication, such as Bluetooth, ZigBee, and Wi-Fi. However, those forms of wireless communication are undesirable and potentially limiting in application. For example, while wireless communication offers flexibility in application, wireless communication presents interoperability concerns across the various wireless communication standards and protocols, and poses a potential security concern by exposing the data and access to the wearable sensor device to potentially harmful third parties. Additionally, wireless communications are susceptible to interference and potentially unreliable wireless networks.